Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/185

150 to sixty you may not go back even if you do not go forward. From sixty onwards you can find refuge in foursomes as long as you can walk and lumbago and rheumatism are absent. Nobody will really get enthusiastic about any game or pursuit where the element of progress is impossible. The sportsman whose shooting deteriorates gradually but surely, will transfer his licence to his son; the cricketer who cannot raise ten runs, and whose function is watching his own side from the tent and his opponent under a hot sun and fielding out, will give up the game and become a spectator. But improvement at golf is quite within the reach of many, because agility and quickness are not requisite, but rather the reverse. This element of progress is a highly important feature, and largely accounts for the popularity of the game.

As years go on, a man's golf undergoes changes. A player's stance has to be altered gradually when his rapidly-changing figure makes a view of his feet not always easy. When younger he prided himself on the length of his drive, but golf provides compensation for the very material abbreviation that inevitably comes